Wine Rec: Boeuf Bourguignon

Another wine rec please. Two in fact for this. Making a Boeuf Bourguignon with shiitake mushrooms and pearl onions. I need a full bottle of wine for the sauce and would appreciate wine recs for that wine. I will be serving this dish with egg noodles and I will make some home made thick crusted bread. I also need a wine to drink with this dish. Suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks.

Greg

A basic Bourgogne for the dish and either the same or a bit better example to drink with it. Next question.

assuming you don't have an aged bottle of burgundy in the cellar or you wouldn't have asked, you are pretty much stuck with new world. the more expensive ones from david bruce are usually worth the money and the cheaper ones aren't. watch for tannin in the cooking wine - you don't want it - or add lots of butter at the end to soften. even a good 2005 beaujolais would work. and remember - the bacon they refer to is unsmoked - so fresh side port or salt pork de salted.

I know many will not agree but will challenge a person to tell if a Bourgone is used or another decent red wine. I use a good fruit driven, unoaked red wine for all of my meat stews. This is the only time I ever open Yellow Tail Syraz.
Walt

If you can't get a Bourgogne Rouge to use in the cooking, as pointed out just about any inexpensive red wine will do. One red wine I would NOT recommend is Bonny Doon's Clos de Gilroy. I used that in Coq au Vin once and it tinted the chicken a lurid lavender color. Tasted OK, but looked funny.

For drinking with the dish, a fine red Burgundy, or a pinot noir, or a Rhone.

-Paul W.

Some people claim to be able to discern sauces made from Chambertin from those made with a humble Bourgogne. I am not one of them In your shoes, I'd pick up a decent, drinkable Pinot Noir for the cooking and then trot out a very high quality and powerful red Burgundy or Pinot Noir for drinking with the dish. Personally, I'd have no problem serving most any big, nuanced red wine such as Cote-Rotie, aged Nebbiolo or even a Brunello. YMMV of course.

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

Some people claim to be able to discern sauces made from Chambertin from those made with a humble Bourgogne. I am not one of them In your shoes, I'd pick up a decent, drinkable Pinot Noir for the cooking and then trot out a very high quality and powerful red Burgundy or Pinot Noir for drinking with the dish. Personally, I'd have no problem serving most any big, nuanced red wine such as Cote-Rotie, aged Nebbiolo or even a Brunello. YMMV of course.

Mark Lipton

Mark, I'm with you. Spend about $10 for something like a Gallo of Sonoma or Cartlidge & Brown pinot for the dish, and spend $20 or more for a higher caliber pinot noir to drink with it.

I have to add my rule - don't cook with something you wouldn't drink. Other than that, I'm with Jenise and Mark.

The last time we made this dish, admittedly a long time ago, I had a half case of nice Cru Beaujolais, which I obtained at an attractive close-out sale. This wine was perfect for this dish.

On another note, I read an article years ago in Cook's magazine, which experimented with various red wines for cooking. I think they used about six different types of reds, including a Pinot Noir, and they made a handful of different meals. Their conclusion was to find a nice tasting, affordable Cotes-du-Rhone.

-- Clark

We tend to use an inexpensive but palatable PN, Castle Rock or something like the Drouhin LaForet. We've also tried CdR and things like Borsao. All have made a tasty dish, but for me (and I readily admit this was not blind and power of suggestion could be working) I thought the better Burgundies I served with the dish matched better with the PN based stew.

We may actually do BB for Christmas Day (one guest told Betsy it was his favorite dish). Probably 2001 Drouhin Chambolle, a '93 Volnay or NSG 1er, and maybe a Littorai PN for variety.

I ... will challenge a person to tell if a Bourgone is used or another decent red wine.

Walt, it depends on the taster. I know local chefs who will tell you the region and the year when you give them a stew sample. I've seen it. Therefore they insist on well-chosen wines even for very inexpensive dishes.

I cook many stews with wine. Just made an exquisite one, improvised unmarinated boeuf Bourg. with (from my kitchen log) a little rendered diced local slab bacon (Dittmer's) caramelizing lots of chopped leek and red onion. Added beef cubes, small handful of whole Tellicherry peppercorns and some dried marjoram both soaked in red wine for a while, and handful of whole peeled garlic cloves. Braised, unclovered to cook down somewhat in Dutch oven, in half wine, half beef stock, with crushed rye crackers or "rusks"-- a good German trick -- to thicken. This combination and its aromas were very very good. I therefore considered omitting mushrooms (already sliced) but compromised, added moderate quantity as the beef was becoming very tender, finished with a little more cooking.

Wine was a local one on hand, 1997 Ahlgren Merlot (Santa Cruz Mountains and still surprisingly strong and tannic).

By the way, practice of throwing cheap beef cuts, handful of whole peppercorns, and red wine into a pot and stewing slowly is credited to renaissance Italian construction workers who would start it in the morning on an outdoor fire, with meat the local butchers were cutting up. Then at mid-day buy a loaf of fresh bread from local baker and make a good meal. It's called I think Il peposo and is a good foundation for many exquisite simple stews, and easy to remember.

Back to wine, food pundits for 100 years (whom I could quote to you and not from online) have suggested to use a wine you like well, one bottle for the stew and another for the table.

I think I will look for a modestly priced PN or CdR for the pot, and step up a bit in quality for the wine for the glass.

Thanks

G

Back to wine, food pundits for 100 years (whom I could quote to you and not from online) have suggested to use a wine you like well, one bottle for the stew and another for the table.

Yeah, but back in the day it wasn't quite the splurge it is now to throw a bottle of village Chambolle or Volnay in the pot. Personally I would find it hard to enjoy the BB knowing there was $50 of Lafarge in there. Wealthier folks might feel differently, and make their coq au Chambertin with the real thing.

Dale: Touché.

I think I will look for a modestly priced PN or CdR for the pot, and step up a bit in quality for the wine for the glass.

Thanks

G

I agree, CdR always works for me.

Wealthier folks might feel differently, and make their coq au Chambertin with the real thing.

Traditional Coq au Chambertin was always made with the leftover press wine--stuff otherwise destined to be either distilled into Marc de Bourguignon or discarded--never with the wine destined to be bottled and drunk. Of course, Chambertin press wine is probably harder to come by outside of Burgundy than the Chambertin grand vin. But the tradition is to use cheap pinot noir in the cooking.

-Paul W.

OK. I picked up a Jadot Burgundy 2005 for the pot, and Jadot Pernand-Vergelesses de la Croux de Pierre 02 for the glass. How did I do?

G

Sounds good to me. Take a swig of the '05 before using it all.

Kevin

Sounds pretty good (I think you mean Pernand-Vergelesses?). Would like to hear how you liked wine, dish, and match.

Paul, do you have a source for that? I've never heard that, nor is it mentioned in the Larousse recipe for Chambertin sauce, etc.

Greg,

In my book, ya done real good!!

Salut,

-Paul W.

Paul, do you have a source for that? I've never heard that, nor is it mentioned in the Larousse recipe for Chambertin sauce, etc.

I heard that from Richard Eccleston, my wine merchant, who heard it from the winemakers in Burgundy. It makes a lot of sense. Chambertin grand vin has been prized for over a century--who's going to waste it in a sauce? Not even Larousse.

-Paul W.

Usually press juice is filtered and maybe sold as lower end wine, or as you say made into marc. It's hard to believe that enough people saved the press juice of Chambertin, fermented it, and then used for a particular recipe. And that dozens of recipes that call for a bottle of Chambertin actually meant something not bottled as Chambertin. Grand Crus have always been more expensive, but not the stratospheric difference of the last couple decades. I've seen interesting lists from 30-40 years ago, where Bourgognes were X, village wines X x 1.5, 1er crus X x 2, GCs x 3. The current GCs at 10-100 times as expensive is a recent development. Similarly, someone posted the Sherry Lehmann Bdx en primeur list from I think '78 vintage, the firsts were 3X the better 3rd-5th growths, about double the top 2nds. Now bigger disparity.

Dale,

I was talking about press WINE, not unfermented press JUICE.

After a vat or barrel of red grape must ferments with the skins and solids, the free-run wine is first drained off. What's left is then squeezed to yield a second, coarser and more tannic, juice--the press wine. The winemaker may choose to blend some of the press wine back in with the free-run wine, if the latter needs more tannic backbone (this was famously done with the 1982 Chateau Pichon-Lalande, which benefited greatly in the end from addition of some press wine, and which was drastically underrated by Parker when he did his initial barrel tastings, because the press wine hadn't been blended back in yet).

The solids left over after the press wine is extracted may be distilled to make Marc de Bourgogne.

The portion of the press wine that isn't blended back in with the free-run wine is either given to the vineyard workers, used in cooking (e.g., Coq au Chambertin made from Chambertin press wine), or distilled into brandy.

Real Chambertin as bottled probably was, as you say, used in cooking when one wanted to be chu-chu about things, back before the price differential between Chambertin and lesser crus wasn't as steep as it is today. These days what Coq au Chambertin is still offered in restaurants in Burgundy is almost certainly made with press wine procured from Chambertin producers.

-Paul W.

The old bromide was: Three bottles of Chambertin, one for the sauce and two for the table.

BTW I was sent an offer the other day for some older vintage DRC Marc at $500 per bottle. Nothing makes sense any more.